When Henry Allingham and Harry Patch died in July 2009, I started thinking how long some people live for. What they had experienced over their life times was amazing. Some people had their lives seemingly cut short by war or illness. Below I've started a table to show some of my relatives' life spans, together with some of the well known centenarians and supercentenarians. There have been 130 verified supercentenarians from the UK. There are at least 154 verified supercentenarians alive in the world at the moment, with 1 having been born in the 19th century.

Jeanne Calment

21 February 1875

4 August 1997

122 years, 164 daysOldest person ever verified.

Nabi Tajima

4 August 1900

Still alive

117 years, 129+ daysOldest person alive todayand the last person alive in the 21st century to have been born in the 19th century.

When I've managed to check on some more Parish Registers and bought more BMD certificates, some of this data will be more precise. The Office for National Statistics says that the average life expectancy is around 80 for a person being born in the UK at the moment. Here are more details.